


The Man Who Knew What He Wanted

by bobthemole



Category: Tin Man (2007)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-18
Updated: 2010-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-13 18:33:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/140394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bobthemole/pseuds/bobthemole
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A retrospective. Zero knew what the O.Z. was supposed to be like.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Man Who Knew What He Wanted

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jedi Buttercup (jedibuttercup)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedibuttercup/gifts).



Through the murky face-plate of his man-shaped prison, he saw the melrins wander into view…sniffing his prison curiously as they nibbled the grasslands into manicured turf. That’s how Zero knew that the O.Z. had fallen again.

~

 _“You don’t know what the country looked like in the wild days,” muttered his grandmother, “before the usurpers came from the other side to_ civilize _this place.”_

 _The boy sat next to the old woman far from the window. She was blind and didn’t know night from day anymore, but the pictures in her head were vivid. As she spoke, she gripped the boy’s fingers so he wouldn’t wander away._

 _“Fuck them. Fuck the Gales with their pretty smiles and their charming ditties. It’s all legerdemain with them. They play us like dolls at a tea party while they raze the arcane places. They scoured Finaqua and built a pleasure dome on its ruins.”_

 _The boy wanted to go out and play but his grandmother wanted someone to sit with her as she muttered. There was no use beseeching his aunt – she’d tell him everyone else was busy and he was the only one who could be spared to keep the biddy company. The soil was growing sourer by the year and it took all of them to grow enough to keep them fed. What with the extra mouths she had to feed…_

 _So Zero sat next to his grandmother and listened to her stories while his fingers went numb in her grip. Her father had been killed when Dorothy the First attacked the castle of the Green Witch. Her own magics faded when the Black Forest was felled to build the Royal Mausoleum. Then her youngest children caught the Red Fever and she didn’t have the power to cure them…_

 _She poured out her bitterness day upon day while Zero sat and listened._

~

He despised the iron suit that comprised his prison. The Cains had fumbled his handcuffs so he had some mobility in his limbs, but he was stuck in one place with the same blurry view of the grasslands. He fought the restlessness that churned in his belly and considered how much longer he’d be here.

They would be coming to get him. Not at once, of course. There would be giddy celebrations while the key players jostled for power. Wyatt Cain would get a cushy palace appointment, no doubt. Then, after a few purges to keep the ranks in line, they would send a unit to retrieve him.

That gave him a week.

He positioned the broken edge of his handcuffs against the groove he had so far carved in the wall of his iron cell. And he scraped, and scraped...

~

 _The only weakness Zero ever admitted was that he hated standing still. Ambush was different – he could stand motionless for hours waiting for his prey – but when commanded to stand in formation by a superior officer, he had to fight instincts that told him to flee. He responded by zealously advancing his career so he became the superior officer in question, and found that issuing commands was far more suited to his temperament._

 _Zero had been in the army a few years when news spread that the younger princess was dead, and in her grief the queen had lost her powers. There was a restlessness in the ranks, and he was unsurprised when Princess Azkadelia was seen holding negotiations with certain senior officers._

 _His brigadier general hosted a reception in her honor when she came to inspect their division. Zero went expecting to see a chit of a girl trying desperately to hold the realm together. Instead he found a commanding presence that held the entire room rapt. She may have been a Gale, but she put him in mind of something older, something wilder…_

 _“There is a canker eating away at the heart of the O.Z.,” she said to the crowd. “Our magical heritage has been diluted, even polluted, by influences from the Other Side. I am sorry to say that my own ancestors have had a role in fostering these influences, and they have suffered dearly for it.”_

 _Something tethered Zero’s attention to the Princess. He couldn’t have turned away if he tried._

 _“There was a time when the O.Z. was steeped in the old magics, when “civilization” hadn’t sequestered power into the hands of a few. The Papé were proud, fierce warriors instead of bourgeois farmers who squabble over the market price of apples. The Black Forest held the Sour Sands at bay. Look at us now!”_

 _Azkadelia spoke of restoring the O.Z. to its native state, of nurturing the magics under cover of dark until they could run wild again. And then she hinted, just a bit, of other worlds to conquer._

 _When his brigadier began to select men for Her Highness’ personal forces, he was among the first chosen._

~

Fingers torn, knuckles bruised, the steel of his handcuff-pick ground down to a nub, he finally had a hole in the shell of his prison big enough for his finger to pass through. He reached for the bolt that held the door of his cage shut. The tip of his finger touched the latch, just barely. He tried to lift it, but the angle was bad. The edge of the hole cut into his skin right at the knuckle – the wound bled savagely and trickled down to his finger, making it slippery. He cursed and pulled his hand back in. He’d have to wait at least until the blood dried.

~

 _When General Lonot issued the order to suppress Resistance efforts, Zero took immense satisfaction in his task. But not everyone was ready to do what it took to unite the country under Azkadelia’s banner._

 _Ensign Keto was a Munchkinlander, a capable officer, who had recently been inducted into the Longcoat division after achieving some small glory in the Battle of Mossmere. He was a rising star and there was talk of promotion, which is why it was altogether surprising that he lost his nerve after Linster Village._

 _He stood apart from the campfire in the shadow of the mess tent, his stew going cold in his hands. Zero approached him._

 _“Ensign! Grub not to your liking?”_

 _Keto jerked his head up. “It’s fine, sir.”_

 _“Then why aren’t you eating?”_

 _“Considering battle strategy, sir. I’m…reviewing today’s action.”_

 _“You look like you’re not happy. Anything you didn’t like about it? Maybe you want to offer Brigadier Nolis some advice.”_

 _The correct response at this point would have been for Keto to deny he disagreed with his superior officers. Zero knew that and he knew Keto knew that. So everything that happened after this point was, in a sense, entirely on Keto’s cognizance._

 _Keto said, “I understand the need to destroy the morale of the Resistance. But was it necessary to burn down Linster Village? The Resistance doesn’t even have any ties here – they forced a blacksmith to shoe a horse.”_

 _Zero sighed._

 _“The raid had nothing to do with the village,” he told Keto. “We have to send a message to the Resistance that anywhere they turn for help is tainted by association with them. They need to be reminded that the government is in control. We could erase a dozen villages and the O.Z. will go on, business as usual, but they’ll be squeezed dry when no one is willing to offer them aid.”_

 _“I understand the strategy, sir,” Keto’s self-preservation skills kept falling in Zero’s estimation, “but I can’t see the justice in it. That woman was with child…”_

 _“I can see where this is going,” Zero interrupted. “You’re thinking of words like ‘brutal’ and ‘obscene’ and you’re thinking of ways to achieve the target outcome with a bit more…elegance.” Shit, the kid looked near tears. “You’re not the first soldier to question the orders of a superior. But let me say this. The men who issue these orders have more years of experience between them than you could ever hope to get. They know how important it is for the realm to stand together against those who seek to destroy our way of life. And they know you sometimes have to sacrifice a weak part to make the whole stronger.”_

 _Keto looked like he wanted to say more but he nodded shakily and said he understood._

 _That night Zero met with the brigadier and spoke with him about Keto’s morale problem._

 _A week later there was a surprise attack on Keto’s unit when they were out patrolling the Crack. Ensign Keto was tragically killed in the ensuing melee. His remains were sent home with a letter from the general lamenting that a life with such promise was cut short._

~

Gingerly, he reached for the bolt on the side of his cage but the angle was all wrong - he didn’t have the leverage to release it. Now his hand was bleeding again and the cuff was blunted. He could wait for Cain to send someone to fetch him, which could take any amount of time depending on generous the Tin Man was feeling. Then he’d be marched to Central City, in broad daylight to ensure his humiliation. Zero laughed shakily. What better way to show the end of the regime than to parade its most brutal weapon on the way to the stocks?

The churning in his belly finally boiled over. He kicked the door of his cage with what little force he could leverage, over and over until pain exploded and he screamed from the depths of his being.

Fifteen minutes later, a melrin-herder came by and set him free, thinking he was a Resistance fighter.

~

 _When you took him out of the temple and its smoke and mirrors, Mystic Man was little more than a huckster in a shiny suit. But the masses_ adored _him, seemed to think he carried a bit of the Gales’ reflected glory. There would have been…objections…if he were duly punished for his treason. That’s the reason Azkadelia chose to manage him differently after his aid to the Resistance was revealed. Zero had objected to this lax treatment – by now he ranked high enough that his opinion counted – but the Sorceress felt that the wizard’s influence would wane if he were simply more…accessible to the public._

 _They gave him a manager and a dressing-room. Not the same as a High Priest and a sanctum sanctorum, but the vapors blurred the lines a bit and his audience loved him more when he was close enough to touch. And the more they loved him, the less they believed he could save them._

 _Zero was put in charge of Mystic Man’s security detail in the early days, when the fool still thought of escape on occasion. As a lieutenant colonel, Zero hardly needed to patrol himself, but there were days he couldn’t resist standing witness as the treacherous old fraud unraveled._

 _After an appearance, the wizard would sit in his dressing gown and watch the sand in his hourglass trickle down. Sometimes the man would mumble to himself. Zero made a point of intruding into his apartment - examining thing, touching them, perhaps accidentally breaking them. Mystic Man hardly seemed to care._

 _Except one day as he pawed through an illuminated manuscript about the Other Side, Zero heard a wheezy laugh behind him. Mystic Man was watching him with rheumy eyes and chuckling._

 _“Finally lost it, you old fart?” demanded Zero._

 _The wizard laughed even harder at that, then subsided with a violent cough._

 _Zero turned to leave when Mystic Man asked, “Finally found it, you little thug?”_

 _“What the hell are you on about?”_

 _Mystic Man settled back in his chair. “People have come to me for a lot of things. My only magic is in showing them what they already know.”_

 _“I already know you’re a phony.”_

 _“It certainly takes one to know one.”_

 _Zero froze halfway to the door. “What the fuck do you mean by that?”_

 _“Well,” Mystic Man smiled benignly, “Do you know why you do what you do?”_

 _Zero’s training told him not to engage with his prisoner and his instincts told him to walk away. Yet he found himself unable to leave._

 _“I want to restore the O.Z. to what it’s supposed to be,” he said. “I want to undo the damage done by the Gales and I want to unite the country under the Sorceress, who has a strategy for bringing back the wild magics.”_

 _“Oh, I see,” said Mystic Man. “This restoration involves, say, erasing villages that have been part of the O.Z. for centuries? National unity is to be fostered at gunpoint? Of course, undoing damage requires causing more of your own.”_

 _Zero spoke through clenched teeth, “Some sacrifices must be made to ensure that the country survives in the long run.”_

 _“All the better if those sacrifices are made by other people!”_

 _“We’ve – I’ve sacrificed enough,” Zero shouted back._

 _“Not personally, no,” said the old man. “On the other hand, yes, I’d say you have sacrificed too much.”_

 _“_ Shut up _!”_

 _Mystic Man continued calmly, “I’m not surprised at all … sometimes the only way to stop the pain is to pass it forward, and the realm is right there! It’s begging to be punished…”_

 _Zero picked up a fresh tank of Vapors and smashed it against the mantelpiece. The vessel fractured, the fumes filled the room._

 _As he dashed out with eyes watering, Zero heard a mutter behind him, “If he only had a…”_

~

The melrin-herder tended to Zero’s hand by the creek. He cleaned up the blood, stitched the wounds, and daubed them with ointment.

“Thank you,” said Zero quietly.

“No, thank you!” The Quadling patted Zero’s knee. “Least I can do after you folks kept us safe in the bad times.”

“The bad times,” repeated Zero.

“It’s all changed now, ‘though I suppose you couldn’t tell in your box there,” the herder unrolled a length of bandage and cut it with his knife. “First we knew something was afoot was when the double eclipse lasted five times longer than it should. The animals kicked up such a fuss, you wouldn’t believe it. Now hold out your hand, just like that!”

The herder wound the bandage around Zero’s cut finger, and then began to wrap it around his hand. Zero watched the little man tie off the bandage with a practiced hand and tuck the ends under.

“We thought the Sorceress had killed the suns and Mellie cried because she thought we’d starve, but then it was over. Our Royce came down from Central City the next day with the news. I would not believe it from anyone else but he says Lavender Eyes came back to take the throne…”

Zero closed his eyes.

 “… And little Lady D.G. is with her, back from the dead and all grown up! Royce says he near went deaf from the cheers. And they’ve pardoned the Sorceress too, that’s how good-hearted they are…”

Zero opened his eyes again.

“There you are, sir! Change the bandage every night and you’ll be right as summer rain,” the herder smiled and began to pack his medicine bag. Zero quietly slipped the knife up his sleeve. He’d probably need it at some point.

“You’ll be wanting to join back up with the Resistance, I suppose,” the herder hefted up his pack with a grunt. “Tho’ by rights it ain’t the Resistance anymore, is it? I’ll bet you all get shiny medals…”

Zero laughed shortly. “Yeah,” he replied, “it’s our turn now.”

The herder looked at him uncertainly. “You know, walking won’t do that limp any favors. You rest here, and I’ll talk to the sheriff about sending your men to fetch you…”

The herder nodded and turned away, driving his melrin before him.

Zero calculated. It would take perhaps six hours for Wyatt Cain to find out he was free and order a manhunt. But if the melrin-herder never made it to the village, Zero would have a significant head start.

The knife slipped into Zero’s good hand, his throwing hand.

He debated his next move.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to angearia for helping me through a tricky writing point, and to verity and snick for the great beta.


End file.
